


Don't Go Without Me

by fraxiinus



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Drabble/Ficlet, F/M, Post-Mass Effect 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 19:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4031614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraxiinus/pseuds/fraxiinus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The theory of the multiverse states that there is not just the universe in which we reside, but in fact many universes, all rotating in tandem with one another. There is a version of ourselves that has taken every possible choice we have been presented in our lives in every combination. Versions of ourselves as endless as the amount of times we’ve made a snap decision, the amount of times we’ve had a regret, the amount of times we’ve fallen in love.</p><p>Garrus knows this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Go Without Me

The theory of the multiverse states that there is not just the universe in which we reside, but in fact many universes, all rotating in tandem with one another. There is a version of ourselves that has taken every possible choice we have been presented in our lives in every combination. Versions of ourselves as endless as the amount of times we’ve made a snap decision, the amount of times we’ve had a regret, the amount of times we’ve fallen in love.  
  
Garrus knows this.  
  
-  
  
There is a universe where he stares up at the sky in awe and apprehension, giant monsters forged from the collective nightmares of a galaxy’s children, flying upwards, carrying parts to rebuild a planet they had almost destroyed.  
  
He stands in the ruins of the citadel, rebuilding, as he has been for months. He had long since stopped searching for her, he knows he’ll never find her. He had found her helmet on the second day, pushed forward by it’s presence like a man trying to keep from drowning in an endless sea, but he had never found another trace of her. Not a scrap of fabric, not a dogtag, not a hair.  
  
There had been so much blood.  
  
He went under.  
  
A reaper drone flies quickly over his head, loaded with supplies for the ward. He watches it go, longer than he should. No one can come up with an explanation for why the reapers suddenly turned around, why they were helping rebuild, why the war had been ended in a giant blast of blue and fire.  
  
He thinks of her. He thinks of the impossible.  
  
He keeps rebuilding.  
  
-  
  
There is a universe where he stares down at her name, solid and final, etched into metal cold and uncomforting. He runs his talons slowly over every letter long after the plate is placed on the wall that, to him, feels like a grave more than a memorial. He can feel the eyes of the souls of every name staring at him, accusing.  
  
But never hers.  
  
They had never found a body, and he had dismissed the opportunity to look. He knew she wasn’t there.  
  
EDI tells him that her consciousness is startling, but exciting, and he is happy for her. He sees the way that Joker looks at her when he thinks she isn’t watching, he sees the way she smiles because even alive, she always is. This world offers so many opportunities for them, and in so much death he enjoys seeing something grow.  
  
At night he sits on the bed (her bed) in the captains cabin (her cabin) and closes his eyes.  
  
_“You’ll never be alone.”_  
  
He feels the unnatural pull of his body, a sensation that he’s almost gotten used to. He feels the pulse within him, the new, unexplainable result of an action that no one can understand. Speculations fly abound as to what brought the end to this war, this change to the universe, but he feels the energy inside him, like a second heartbeat, warm, forgiving, and he knows.  
  
“Never.”  
  
-  
  
There is a universe where he stands, determined and defiant, on the bridge while Joker brings the ship to the air. The metal in his hands had felt wrong, her name even more-so, and he had refused to place it. He told them that they were going back, that they had to look, and he heard no voices of objection.  
  
Liara had found him in port observation while he waited for the repairs to be finished, the conversation they exchanged was one of mutual understanding and few words. He knew she had been in the same position. He had been told what was left, how much damage had been done. Cerberus was gone, there was no one who could do the job again. He knew what she wanted to say. He appreciated that she didn’t.  
  
She knew that three years earlier, none of it would have mattered to her, either.  
  
They get to the Citadel and find it in ruin. Crews had arrived to assess the damage only a short time before them, the scent of the dead was almost overtaken by the scent of the bile of the living. He thought about her, making her way through the blood and gore to complete the mission, and he knew that for her he could do it as well.  
  
He tried not to pay attention to the keeper in the corner, sorting the loose limbs into piles.  
  
They find the epicenter of where she had been, it’s not hard. A spiraling mass of destruction, the crucible turned to foreign rubble, almost indistinguishable from the still standing framework of the much more familiar Citadel. They search for hours. They find her helmet.  
  
They find Anderson.  
  
He starts to feel the hope in his chest sink heavy to the pit of his stomach, but he carries on.  
  
Hours of searching leading nowhere exhausts the crew, him even more, but despite himself he doesn’t slow, he can’t. Tali is the one to finally put a hand on his shoulder and halt the motion of his body that hasn’t stopped since they landed. He resists, but relents, and he stands to turn back when he sees it and everything in him, including his breath, stops.  
  
A single glimmer, metal caught on the suns rays at the peak of the rubble, flashing, calling to him.  
  
He feels like someone popped a heat sink straight into his veins. He takes off like every ounce of his soul rests on the top of that rubble, hope and dread fighting a battle inside of him so fierce that he wasn’t sure if he would live regardless of the victor. Time slows and it feels like an eternity until he makes it to the top, his entire body shaking, his eyes watering on their own and he’s far too gone to care.  
  
Frantic, he uncovers her face, her arms, gingerly lifts her broken body up. Within a second he prays to any god that will listen to him, because in all the galaxies of all the universes and every possibility that the cosmos could ever create, he has to believe that somewhere, there is her, smiling into her old age, surrounded by love and happiness and what he wouldn’t give to just see her smile at him one more time-  
  
She breathes.  
  
So does he.

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished Mass Effect 3 and got slammed with emotions about Garrus in all the different endings (I picked Destroy). This kind of goes along with the Shakarian playlist I made, and the lyrics are from the first song, C'est la Mort by The Civil Wars.
> 
> https://8tracks.com/seerofsarcasm/tomorrow-will-be-kinder


End file.
